A Revolution in Real Estate Sales!

This Saturday will be the first of three SendOutCards Super Saturdays aimed at realtors. Don't worry if you're not a realtor, you'll still get something out of it.

This month we're featuring Jim McCord. Here's his bio from an event that he did in Sacramento in June of last year:

Jim McCord has been a licensed realtor since 1993. Six years ago he began using a system that completely changed his career. It works so well, he wrote a book "A Revolution In Real Estate Sales", which quickly became the #1 Best Seller on Amazon in the "Real Estate Sales" category. Jim is currently licensed with Keller Williams in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Jim lives in Ft. Thomas, Kentucky and has been the top agent in his county and numerous times top agent in his office. For the past 30 months his sole focus is Luxury Homes ... He has listed more than 25 homes over a million dollars!

Jim has four grown children, two boys, two girls and two lovely granddaughters. He loves to travel, hike, run and cycle. In 1978 Jim road a bicycle from Williamsburg, VA to Florence, OR. In 2002 he ran a marathon-a-day from San Diego, CA to Washington D.C. for diabetes awareness. Jim has a passion for helping and conversing with those that are homeless.

Jim won't be joining us live since he'll be in the Washington DC area on Saturday, but he's kindly consented to letting us use the video of an event that he did in San Diego.

If you're a realtor, I highly recommend that you attend this 2 hour training if at all possible. It'll probably be two of the best hours that you've invested in your career.

The next two Super Saturdays will feature Jay McHugh on September 9th and Gayle Zientek on October 14th. I've seen all three of these people speak and they're all very good speakers as well as successful realtors.

Interesting days

Today - Scottish Wildcat Day, Bowling Day, International Cat Day, Happiness Happens Day and Odie Day

Tomorrow - Melon Day, Rice Pudding Day and Book Lovers Day

Next Tuesday - Relaxation Day, Lemon Meringue Pie Day, Acadian Day and Check The Chip Day

September 8 - Iguana Awareness Day, Actors' Day, Pardon Day, Star Trek Day, Literacy Day and  World Physical Therapy Day

The end of an era

As of yesterday, the "Funday Sunnies" have been discontinued. I didn't feel that they really added much value to my blog. So, I'm going to post 6 days a week most weeks except I will do a monthly wrap-up on the last Sunday of the month which will contain links to the 4 (or 5) Friday Fishwraps of the month and what each one contained. I hope that this change will add more value to this blog for you.

Interesting days

Today - Lighthouse Day, Professional Speakers Day and Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day

Tomorrow - Scottish Wildcat Day, Bowling Day, International Cat Day, Happiness Happens Day and Odie Day

Next Monday - Afternoon Tea Week, Creamsicle Day and Social Security Day

September 7 - Superhuman Day, Salami Day, Beer Lover's Day and Buy a Book Day Since yesterday was "Read a Book Day", you'll need to go out and buy a new one today

Your weekend guide to interesting days

This week

Sunday - Father-in-Law Day, Paperback Book Day and Cheesecake Day

Monday -  Raspberry Cake Day, World Ranger Day and Uncommon Instrument Awareness Day

August - Family History Month, Anti-Frizz Month, Fishing Month, Water Quality Month, Happiness Happens Month, Romance Awareness Month and Peach Month

Tuesday - Girl Friends Day, International Childfree Day, World Lung Cancer Day, Respect For Parents Day, World Wide Web Day, Rounds Resounding Day, Yorkshire Day and Raspberry Cream Pie Day

Wednesday - Ice Cream Sandwich Day and Coloring Book Day

Thursday- White Wine Day, Watermelon Day, India Pale Ale Day and Clean Your Floors Day

Yesterday - Single Working Women's Day, International Beer Day, Coast Guard Day and Assistance Dog Day

Today - Disc Golf Day, Mustard Day, Mead Day, Sandcastle Day, Underwear Day, Work Like a Dog Day and Oyster Day

Next week

Tomorrow -  Farmworker Appreciation Day, Wiggle Your Toes Day, Root Beer Float Day, Fresh Breath Day, Psychic Day, Sisters' Day, Friendship Day, International Sailor Moon Day and Doll Day

Monday - Lighthouse Day, Professional Speakers Day and Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day

Tuesday - Scottish Wildcat Day, Bowling Day, International Cat Day, Happiness Happens Day and Odie Day

Wednesday - Melon Day, Rice Pudding Day and Book Lovers Day

Thursday - S'mores Day, Skyscraper Appreciation Day, World Lion Day, Duran Duran Appreciation Day and Lazy Day

Friday - Play In The Sand Day, Son and Daughter Day and Ingersoll Day

Saturday - International Youth Day, Vinyl Record Day, World Elephant Day, Garage Sale Day and Middle Child's Day

Next month

August 30 - International Whale Shark Day, Grief Awareness Day, Holistic Pet Day, Toasted Marshmallow Day, Frankenstein Day and Slinky Day

August 31 - We Love Memoirs Day, Love Litigating Lawyers Day, Trail Mix Day and Burger Day

September - Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, Sewing Month, Read A New Book Month, Piano Month, Happy Cat Month, Hunger Action Month, Honey Month and Chicken Month

September 1 - Bring Your Manners To Work Day, Building and Code Staff Appreciation Day, Letter Writing Day, Emma M Nutt Day, College Colors Day and Lazy Mom's Day

September 2 -  International Turkey Vulture Day, V-J Day, World Beard Day and Calendar Adjustment Day

September 3 - Pet Rock Day, Skyscraper Day and Welsh Rarebit Day

September 4 - Wildlife Day, Newspaper Carrier Day and Macadamia Nut Day

September 5 - Another Look Unlimited Day, World Samosa Day, Be Late For Something Day, International Day of Charity and Cheese Pizza Day

The Friday Fishwrap

All the news that's fit to wrap around a dead fish

The week in review

Monday - "Your best investment is in yourself" Why is it important to invest in yourself? "Unlike other investments out there, investing in yourself is never a risk, because it always pays off. "

Tuesday - "Embrace your skeptics" Find out why skeptics are a good thing for your business. "If somebody tells you that they need more information, that's a good sign. Be sure to share your 3rd party tools...videos, 3 way calls, whatever your company provides for you. And when a skeptic does finally sign up, they're likely to be one of your best team members!"

Wednesday - "Thou shalt not divide by zero" Have you ever wondered why dividing by zero is not allowed? "The simple answer is that dividing any number by zero is undefined. But what does that mean? Why is it undefined?"

Thursday - "Life/work balance #TBT" Sometimes being out of balance for a short time is a good thing. "At the end of 90 days check your results. Did you meet your goals? Often you won't but you should at least be closer...if you followed the items on your to-do list or calendar. "

Interesting days

Today - Single Working Women's Day, International Beer Day, Coast Guard Day and Assistance Dog Day

Tomorrow - Disc Golf Day, Mustard Day, Mead Day, Sandcastle Day, Underwear Day, Work Like a Dog Day and Oyster Day

Next Friday - Play In The Sand Day, Son and Daughter Day and Ingersoll Day

September 4 - Wildlife Day, Newspaper Carrier Day and Macadamia Nut Day

Get some Mrs. Fields Macadamia Nut Cookies from SendOutCards to celebrate!

Life/work balance #TBT

Today's post was originally posted 2 years ago:

Is there even such a thing? And would we want it?

Life is full of imbalances. Obviously, it's not good to be a workaholic but sometimes work will take priority and at other times family may take priority, such as your daughter's dance recital or your son's drum recital. Hearing 20 kids play the drums for 2 hours straight is an experience you'll never forget!

The key is to control the imbalances and the best way to do that is to have goals that you want to achieve in the various areas of your life.

There are 168 hours in a week, but to make it easy let's call it 160. If you have a full time job, 1/4 of your week is already booked. If you sleep 6-7 hours a night that's 42-49 hours a week...56 if you sleep a full 8 hours...maybe a little more on the weekends. So you're looking at 40-60 hours of your week sleeping. Then there's family, personal time, church, volunteering, eating, bathing/grooming, running a part-time business, and whatever else you want to add. You can't devote equal time to everything, especially since more than half of your week is used up just by working and sleeping.

Create goals in each area of your life. You may have a goal to take a family vacation. Or lose weight. Or build your business. How many goals? That's up to you. However many you need. But we will only work on 3-5 total at any one time. And we'll do that by creating a 90 day blitz.

The 90 day blitz

This is often used in business, but there's no reason that you can't apply it to any area of your life. Pick 3-5 goals that you want to accomplish in the next 90 days. It will be easier if you have some long term goals that you want to accomplish. The goals can be from different areas in your life or maybe all will come from only one area. You will be unbalanced during that time but you'll know it ahead of time and it's something that you elected to do so you're in control.

I like the 90 Day Quick Plan by David Horsager. For each goal that you want to accomplish, just follow these steps:

90-Day Quick Plan

1.Where are we now? ___________________________________
2. Where do we want to be in 90 days?______________________
3. Why are we going? ___________________________________ 
4. How are we going to get there?__________________________ 
5. How? _____________________________________________ 
6. How? _____________________________________________ 

As you can see it's pretty straightforward. You start with where you are and then figure out where you want to be in 90 days. Then you figure out why you want to do it. If you have a strong enough why...what's often called "the why that makes you cry", the more likely you are to accomplish that goal. Questions 4-6 are the same question. You want to keep asking how until you get to some actionable item...something you can add to your to-do list or calendar. I read once that you might have to ask "how" seven times, so this list may end up being a total of 10 questions long.

Example

Let's say you want to lose 15 pounds in the next 90 days for your high school reunion.

1. I weigh 195 pounds
2. I weigh 180 pounds (you want to put your goal in the present tense. Using "I am" statements is very powerful)
3. I want to look my best for my high school reunion (oftentimes you'll have to dig deeper here to get to the real why...maybe an old flame will be there. Or maybe you were heavy in high school and it was traumatic for you.)
4. I will eat better
5. I will eat out less often
6. I will eat dinner at home at least 5 days a week. This is something you can put on your calendar

Do this for each of the goals that you want to accomplish and then check them off every day.

At the end of 90 days check your results. Did you meet your goals? Often you won't but you should at least be closer...if you followed the items on your to-do list or calendar. 

Time to do it again. If you didn't meet one or more of your goals, you can try it again. Or come up with all new goals. It's up to you since you're in control.

Interesting days

Today - White Wine Day, Watermelon Day, India Pale Ale Day and Clean Your Floors Day

Tomorrow - Single Working Women's Day, International Beer Day, Coast Guard Day and Assistance Dog Day

Next Thursday - S'mores Day, Skyscraper Appreciation Day, World Lion Day and Duran Duran Appreciation Day

And if that's all too much for you, you can just celebrate Lazy Day,

September 3 - Pet Rock Day and Skyscraper Day As opposed to Skyscraper Appreciation Day! And it's Welsh Rarebit Day I can safely say that I've never had it

Thou shalt not divide by zero

"But why not?", you may be asking.

I'm glad you asked since I'm going to tell you all about it.

The simple answer is that dividing any number by zero is undefined. But what does that mean? Why is it undefined?

Here is a good video that explains why any number divided by zero is undefined.

Another way of looking at it is by setting up an equation such as x=1/0. If we now multiply both sides by zero we get 0*x=1, but we know that any number multiplied by zero is zero, so we end up with 0=1, which is obviously incorrect.

In the second video, he talks about why 0/0 is also undefined. We learned that any number divided by itself is always equal to 1. But before we do that, let's look at 2/2...which is 1. We could write this as 2/2=1. If we multiply both sides by 2, we end up with 2=1*2, 2=2. Now if we try 0/0=1. and multiply both sides by zero we get 0=0*0 or 0=0, which is true. But 0/0 is also equal to 2, 3 ,5, 47, 1,453,675,342...in fact 0/0 is equal to every possible number since 0/0=x and 0=x*0 which will always be 0=0. Since it's not possible to come up with an answer that's always correct, it is also just undefined!

As far as the rest of the list, most of it is just being facetious...except for number 5. And we've talked about that one before.

And the very last line says "i 8 sum pi".

Interesting days

Today - Ice Cream Sandwich Day and Coloring Book Day

Tomorrow - White Wine Day, Watermelon Day, India Pale Ale Day and Clean Your Floors Day

Next Wednesday - Melon Day, Rice Pudding Day and Book Lovers Day

September 2 -  International Turkey Vulture Day, V-J Day, World Beard Day and Calendar Adjustment Day

Embrace your skeptics

This post is based on Jordan Adler's SendOutCards call from yesterday. Even though his weekly calls are aimed at SOC distributors, much of what he says is generic in nature, such as the first part of this call.

There's a big difference between a cynic and a skeptic. Here's a good comparison of the two terms from DifferenceBetween.net:

Skepticism is an open-minded way of thinking about things. Cynicism, on the other hand, is close-minded because it is often a quick reaction or immediate belief that someone is being dishonest.

Usually a skeptic just needs more information to reach a conclusion. A cynic makes a decision without any information.

More from the same article:

In a very basic sense, skepticism challenges views and questions if assumptions are correct or not. Cynicism focuses on the negative parts of a problem. It is good to be a little bit skeptical. It is not good to be cynical. Skeptical people want to have evidence of something before they will believe it is true. Cynical people do not trust any information that they do not personally agree with.

Jordan talks on the call about running into skeptics, cynics and players in your network marketing business in the following approximate percentages:

20% will be cynics...they won't sign up no matter what you say or do
10% will be players...they'll sign up on the spot or with just a little research
70% will be skeptics...they're the ones that will need the 4 to 12 followups to get them to signup

When I joined SendOutCards I was pretty much a player. I looked at the website a little and I signed up 4 days later as a distributor because I knew it was what I needed to promote the other NM business I was in at the time.

There's a saying in network marketing that "You can't say the wrong things to the right people and you can't say the right things to the wrong people". I recently heard a slightly modified version of this: "You can't say the wrong things to the right people AT THE RIGHT TIME and you can't say the right things to the wrong people AT ANY TIME". The cynics are the "wrong people", no matter what you say to them, they won't be interested in your "pyramid scheme" and when the "right people" are ready, they're ready.

If somebody tells you that they need more information, that's a good sign. Be sure to share your 3rd party tools...videos, 3 way calls, whatever your company provides for you. And when a skeptic does finally sign up, they're likely to be one of your best team members!

Interesting days

August - Family History Month, Anti-Frizz Month, Fishing Month, Water Quality Month, Happiness Happens Month, Romance Awareness Month and Peach Month

Today - Girl Friends Day, International Childfree Day, World Lung Cancer Day, Respect For Parents Day, World Wide Web Day, Rounds Resounding Day, Yorkshire Day and Raspberry Cream Pie Day

Tomorrow - Ice Cream Sandwich Day and Coloring Book Day

Next Tuesday - Scottish Wildcat Day, Bowling Day, International Cat Day, Happiness Happens Day and Odie Day

September - Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, Sewing Month, Read A New Book Month, Piano Month, Happy Cat Month, Hunger Action Month, Honey Month and Chicken Month

September 1 - Bring Your Manners To Work Day, Building and Code Staff Appreciation Day, Letter Writing Day, Emma M Nutt Day, College Colors Day and Lazy Mom's Day